


Whatever I Choose

by Jeevey



Category: Oasis (Band)
Genre: M/M, Nineties, gets a little dark
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-30
Updated: 2019-12-02
Packaged: 2021-02-24 15:48:44
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 1,997
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21620464
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Jeevey/pseuds/Jeevey
Summary: "You look just like him.""You're a fucking idiot."
Relationships: Liam Gallagher/Noel Gallagher
Comments: 15
Kudos: 54





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * Translation into 中文-普通话 國語 available: [无论我选择什么](https://archiveofourown.org/works/26987971) by [bemycherrylime](https://archiveofourown.org/users/bemycherrylime/pseuds/bemycherrylime), [Jeevey](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Jeevey/pseuds/Jeevey)



Noel was plucking his way through a new tune in his underwear when the bell rang. Half past one on a Tuesday? That didn't make sense. He set down the guitar and picked up a pair of trousers on his way to the door. 

Through the peephole he saw Liam in the hallway, looking like he’d just crawled out of a bin. Fuck. Noel tossed away the trousers and turned the lock.

He was irritated before the door even closed. Liam looked even more like shit close up: face the color of wet bread; four days late on a shave, and fidgety as fuck. His head was prickled with some sort of filth and he instantly began pacing the flat, touching and gawking at every object like a four-year-old. 

“Put that down, it’s Louise’s” Noel said automatically when he went for a thin glass carafe. 

“Oh. Right.” Liam sounded like he had forgotten about her. “Where’s she, then?”

“Work. You remember how people go to work, yeah?”

Liam shrugged indifferently. He came closer on his next pass of the kitchen, and Noel started at the smell of him.

“Christ, when was the last time you washed?”

Liam shrugged again. “Thursday, was it? There was a bird down in the Bateau after our gig the other night; she said she liked singers and tall ones. Well, I’m not that tall, but enough to be going on with because this bird, let me tell you--”

“Shut up, twat. Have a little respect.”

“Come on, Judas Christ. You do the same.”

“That’s not even the right fucking allusion. And doing and talking about it is two different things, innit? It’s Louise’s own fucking house and I’d like to keep her, thanks very much.”

Liam was rummaging the cupboards one by one. “So what you doing today?” he asked, with his head thrust deep in a drawer.

“Writing.”

“Writing,” he repeated absently. “Going in for novels now, swot?” 

“Songs,” Noel said, gritting his teeth. “Like the one that put you in that girl’s bed?”

“Ah!” Liam exclaimed. He had discovered the liquor cabinet, and began drinking gin from the bottle. “As you were then, as you were.” He waved grandly but kept on talking. Noel didn't hear. He was watching the erratic purple eye, tight-drawn skin, and the continuous nervous rubbing of a hand against one thigh. 

“What kind of drugs have you been taking?” he interrupted.

“Fuck me, all of ‘em,” Liam declared. “I said to him, Gi'me everything you’ve got, and he give it to me, so I’ve been working me way down--” he pulled a fist full of pills from his pocket. Christ. Noel liked drugs as well as anybody but that was enough to fell a horse, and he had been going at it how long?

“Liam,” he said. “Why are you here?”

Liam’s look shied down to his gin. “I’ve fucked up me pills, and I can’t come down. Would you do for me?”

“Do for you.”

“Yeah. You still have it?”

Noel’s hands began to tremble. Too right he still had it--never lived anywhere without it. But just fucking no was the answer to that and he said so, not with a ten foot pole, fucking twat. Liam whined exactly like a snot-nosed kid whenever anyone told him no, and Noel told him that, too.

Liam ceased fidgeting and looked him in the eye. “It’s been days,” he said quietly. “I’m gonna kill m’self by accident just trying to get to sleep. I’ve got bugs crawling out of me skin, I haven’t slept since I don’t know when. I can’t keep doing it, Noel. Help me out.”

There was a long silence.

“Fine. In.” 

Noel made a vicious gesture toward the bedroom but Liam was already on his way, shedding his shirt and boots across the living room, singing “God save the Queen” under his breath. Noel snatched up a grimy primary-school meter stick that stood anonymously near his guitars, and followed.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "I wish he was here."
> 
> "I promise, you don't."

Liam’s body was smooth and fair as a teenager’s in the shadowy bedroom. He had nothing but a dust of hair over the belly and a darker swirl at the base of his spine. Noel had that too, but darker and heavier; he had taken after their father, who was a hairy man. He couldn’t figure out who Liam had taken after. Aliens, maybe. His bare skin looked so exposed--so young--so why was Noel the one shaking? 

He took a long breath. “All right, down.” 

Liam crumpled to the floor and knelt with his head on the bed, hands falling open on the cover. Christ, when had he gotten so thin? The bones rippled under his skin like water. Bloody no. It would split in an instant, surely. He couldn’t.

“Bed,” Noel said.

Liam clambered and stretched and rolled luxuriously into place, dragging his nose across the sheets and inhaling. “Puagh. Pretty, but manky as fuck in here. You’ve done been a naughty boy, Noel.”

“Would you shut the fuck up?” Noel cried. “It’s my own fucking bed! It smells like sex because I live with a _woman _. She lets me shag her because she _likes_ me. I’ll shove my spunky sheets up your arse.”__

____

“Does she, though?”

____

The first blow landed with a crack, unexpected even to Noel and satisfying as hell. Liam jumped like a deer but kept quiet. Noel gave him another one, and his breath escaped in a little huff like a laugh. That wouldn’t do. 

____

“Hang on,” Noel said. After that the world narrowed to the pearly sheen of Liam’s skin, the whoosh and crack of the stick, its edges cutting into his palms, and the sound of their ragged breathing. It was tricky work to lay down one hard red stripe after another without pause, and he was soon sweating. Liam made gasps and grunts at each blow, grinding his body into the bed and pulling at his hair.

____

In a little silence Noel stopped to breathe and surveyed the clear unmarked skin just above Liam’s waistband. The ancient echo of an old blow shivered on his own back. 

____

“Trousers,” he said. Liam shucked the rest of his clothes onto the floor without hesitation. The silence lengthened. 

____

“Come on,” he whispered.

____

“When I’m ready.”

____

“Fucking hell. You sound just like him.”

____

“Fuck you and _fuck_ him.” Noel was angry now, and the stick came down faster. There was a split among the brilliant red welts on his shoulders, shaped in a rectangle from the stick’s brass cap. Noel ignored it. He raised welts over Liam’s arse and down his skinny legs. He watched him bite the pillow at each one, and swung harder.

____

“Now my face.”

____

“What?”

____

Noel’s hearing seemed to have changed somehow. He could hear every tiny movement Liam made, hear the rasp of his knee on the bedsheet, but he couldn’t understand the words. Liam pointed at his cheek. 

____

“My face.” 

____

Christ. Noel climbed onto the bed and straddled Liam’s bare chest. 

____

“Cover yourself, you fucking pervert,” he said.

____

“I’m a pervert.” Liam agreed, pulling the sheet over his hips. “I’m a pervert,” he repeated again in satisfaction. “I’m a pervert? _You’re_ a pervert--”

____

Noel did hit him then, two hard rights to the side of his face. They stared at each other, breathing hard. Liam’s eyes were huge, blown open from the drugs, and Noel couldn’t tell if he could see everything or nothing.

____

“You look just like him,” Liam whispered.

____

“I’m not him.”

____

“Why did he go?”

____

“You’re a fucking idiot.” Noel hit him again.

____

Liam’s eyes seemed to get only bigger, guileless blue, ringed with dark lashes like a girl.

____

“I just want him to be here.”

____

“I promise, you don’t.”

____

“I just want _someone_ to be--”

____

“Shut. Up. Shut _up._ Shut up, shut--”

____

Liam’s face was shocking under his open hand, all high sharp cheekbone and startling soft mouth. Noel’s palm stung from it, over and over. A red line blossomed on Liam’s cheek, a sudden flower sprung from Noel’s ring. The end was close now, and they knew it. He fitted his hand high under Liam’s jaw.

____

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is not safe. Noel is not a dungeon master, the internet doesn't exist yet, and kids get up to weird shit. Do not try it.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "Why do you make me do this?"
> 
> "You never really hurt me."

He fitted his hand high under Liam's jaw. 

His throat was pliant under Noel’s hand, and he uttered a little sigh of pleasure as Noel tested the placement of thumb and finger. Just there--Liam’s pulse ran straight up his arm and directly into his chest. Noel shoved experimentally toward the head of the bed, and Liam’s body slid under his hips. Oh. Perfect. He did it again, harder. Liam’s hands slapped down on his thighs.

“Don’t touch me,” Noel growled, and Liam braced himself against the head board. The world went soundless, cool and intent. And god, it felt good to have him there, that high-strung body quiet at last beneath him and not a sound but his own breathing, fucking perfect. He squeezed and released again and again, feeling each pulse and tiny whoosh of air in Liam's soundless throat. But no, that wasn’t true; the bastard was _still_ making noise. He was fucking singing. And even as Noel pressed and released he could feel the little vibration of sound in his hand, and somewhere dimly recognized the words.

I am he  
You are he  
You are me  
And we are all together

Rage washed over his body like a sickness.

“Shut up. Shut up, cunt, for just one fucking minute--”

Liam began to struggle. But Noel had the upper hand firmly now; he was blind with rage and couldn’t see a fucking thing. There was nothing but the tight fit of his hand under Liam’s throat, the white arching heave of his chest, and somewhere distantly, his thrashing legs. He was going to grind him into the mattress, grind him out of existence, it was so good---

Liam’s body went slack. The sudden stillness shocked Noel into vision again. His chin was thrust up to the ceiling, his face like a war zone. The sheet was littered with little threads of his hair. Noel opened his palm and found more of them pasted onto his sticky skin. He had no memory of pulling his hair. He had no memory of anything.

He was so still.

“Liam. Fuck. Don’t. Oh, Jesus.” Noel pulled him upright and shook him, slapped him, begged him. “Stupid, stupid cunt, wake up, wake up, stupid mother fucker.” Liam was a limp and terrifying rag doll.

As last, he began to whoop and cough and thrash, to puke over the side of the bed. Noel held the bin and wiped his mouth, laid him down and covered him up. He lay with fearsome stillness, breathing shallowly, his lashes making a little dark starburst on each cheek. Noel collapsed on the bed, wiping the snot and tears from his face.

"Christ, Liam. Look what you've done-- you're going to kill us both. Why do you make me do this?"

Liam’s opened his eyes. They were lucid and clear as a child's, and every thread of tension was gone from his body.

“Because you never really hurt me,” he said simply.

“Never really hurt you.” Noel's laugh was half a sob. He touched Liam’s war-zone face. “I blacked your eye just last week. It’s still showing, right over here.”

“I had that one coming, doesn’t count,” Liam murmured.

“You did have that one coming,” Noel said gently.

Liam heaved a deep and contented sigh. His mouth softened as though to say something, but he was asleep before it hit the air. Noel watched him for a long time, making sure he saw each rise and fall of his chest, the pulse in his temple, the twitch of his lids. His guitar was in the other room; he couldn’t get it without disturbing him. He smoothed the filthy, rumpled hair, watched him breathe a little longer and, placing a notepad from Louise’s night stand on the mattress between them, continued making notes on a new song.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> "I think the only thing Liam ever wanted was Noel's attention."
> 
> Anjali Dutt  
> Engineer on Definitely Maybe


End file.
